


Walk On

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is recalled to Afghanistan. Sherlock reacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk On

Of course Sherlock knew before I did. All he had to do was look at the pile of envelopes. Not even AT the envelope itself, just the pile. 

"John…" I looked up from my computer. I think I was writing an email to Sarah about next week. "John."

I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard Sherlock use that voice – the first time at the pool, and then now. 

"What is it, Sherlock?" I asked. 

"You're being redeployed," he said. He hadn't picked up the pile, he was still staring at it, resting on the side table where Mrs Hudson had put them. 

"What? Don't be ridiculous. They can't... I'm… how do you even _know_?"

He didn't reply, merely spun away to the kitchen. 

I sighed and got up, went to the pile of post, sifted through the circulars, journals (why Sherlock needs to subscribe to Etymologist Monthly I'll never know), and bills until I found it. 

A thin envelope. My name and rank. 221B Baker Street. London.

They couldn't do this. I'd been discharged. Invalided out. Diagnosed with PTSD. Oh, and there was the whole problem of my age. 

But there it was. My left hand, damn my hand, my left hand remained rock steady as I opened the envelope. 

Words like "unusual situation" and "familiarity with procedure" and "training capacity" and "record of expertise" caught my eye. And then, at the bottom, "you will be briefed more thoroughly when you report on 24 July 07.30."

My heart sank. There had to be a mistake, there was no way that…

Sherlock leaped from the kitchen and snatched the letter from my hand. 

"Sherlock!" I protested. But of course he'd already moved out of reach. 

I sank to the armchair, watching as Sherlock paced the room, pulled out his mobile, and savagely punched at it. 

"Mycroft, what the hell are you playing at?" he demanded. 

I thought to stand up, to take the phone away, to ask the same question, but I was frozen. 

The conversation lasted less than four minutes, ending abruptly as Sherlock snarled and tossed the phone away.

"Well?" I asked. 

Sherlock glared at me and slammed out of the room. The letter drifted to the floor and lay, seemingly innocuous, in a beam of sunlight.

* * *

It hadn't been a mistake. 

It hadn't been Mycroft. 

It hadn't been an accident, either. 

My previous experience, the state of play on the ground, and my work at Bart's over the past eighteen months, along with the fact that the PTSD seemed to have completely subsided, convinced my former commanders that I would be a useful "asset" to them in oversight of the medical corps. 

Mycroft swore to me that he had had no part in it. 

He swore that he hadn't even known. 

The next time I saw Sherlock, I had been down to Berkshire and back. I had three days of leave, and then I was to ship out to Kandahar. 

He was sprawled on the sofa, in his dressing gown and pyjamas, staring at the ceiling. I checked before I came over; his blog hadn't been updated. He hadn't phoned me either, in the four weeks I'd been gone. 

I stood in the doorway, in my uniform, waiting. 

"I'm home," I finally said. 

There was a sigh from the sofa. 

"I thought maybe…"

No response. 

"Sherlock, you can't…"

He rolled over, his back to me and the rest of the room. 

I sighed. 

"Fine," I said. "I'm going to change. Then I'm going to tidy up, and we're going to eat something and watch crap telly."

No response. 

But that's what I did. I changed, I tidied the kitchen and the sitting room and the bathroom (noting that none of the spaces looked even remotely as if they'd been used in the last month), and then I ordered takeaway and turned on the television. 

And Sherlock didn't move. 

The next morning, I hoovered the flat, shopped for groceries, tried to pry Sherlock off of the sofa. 

Naturally, the one thing I failed at was the last one. 

"Am I going to have to force feed you?" I demanded that evening. 

Sherlock picked up a magazine – a three-month old copy of _Time Out_ and didn't reply. 

We sat in silence for the rest of the evening – even when Sarah came over for dinner, Sherlock didn't move, not even to glare at her. 

Sarah and I went to bed together that night. 

When we came down in the morning, Sherlock was still on the sofa. Reading _Time Out_.

"I'll, erm…" Sarah said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I'll be able to email and…"

"Yeah," she said and kissed me. 

The morning crawled by. I made sure Sherlock had fresh laundry, clean dishes, towels, all the other necessary things that he couldn't be bothered with normally and then sat down to update my blog. 

Which brings us to right now. 

He's still sitting, like Poe's raven, actually. Staring at me as I type this. 

Harry, the email will be the same, but I won't be able to check it much, obviously. 

Mike, thanks for the good wishes. I'll see you in a year, mate!

Murray, I'll look for your razor. 

Greg, try to look after Sherlock – at least if you have time, maybe you and Mrs Hudson can get him off the sofa. 

Sarah,…

* * *

John stood and pushed the chair against the table. The flat had never looked tidier, he thought. 

"Well, Sherlock?"

There was no reply. 

"Look, mate, I… it'll only be a year and…" Everything he tried to say dried up as Sherlock turned and looked at him. 

John caught his breath. There was no way that the marks on Sherlock's cheeks were actually… no. 

Sherlock Holmes, of all people, did not _cry_.

"Sherlock." John's voice was a whisper as he bent down. 

Sherlock sprang from the sofa and crowded John against the wall, gripping John's face in his hands. 

"You _will_ come back," he whispered and kissed John. 

Of all the kisses John Watson had experienced, it was the best and the worst. The best because it was Sherlock, oh God, Sherlock pressed against him, finally, the release of the tension, the channeling of eighteen months of frustration and friendship and, what John finally realized, love into movement of lips and teeth and tongue and hands as Sherlock pressed himself ever closer. The worst because John _knew_ it was the first time and the last time for God knew how long, and if he'd known, or been able to break through the barriers, he'd have been doing this every day if he could and because Sherlock hadn't actually eaten anything for most of the week, much less brushed his teeth and his breath was fetid and stale, but it didn't matter because it was Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, and John knew that _this_ was the memory he'd carry in his heart over the next year. 

They broke away from each other, panting and dazed, Sherlock staring at him as if to sear John into his memory. 

He stepped away, giving John a gentle shove. 

John picked up his bags and nodded. 

The door to 221B Baker Street clicked hollowly shut behind him.

And as he rode away in the taxi, he noticed the flicker of a curtain in the first floor window. 

He tried to pretend that the dampness on his cheeks had come from Sherlock's eyes and not his own. 

Or that the tears did not belong to both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no money.
> 
> Written for [This Prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/10038.html?thread=50672694) on the kinkmeme. 
> 
> And praise to PJ for making this legible! :)


End file.
